Giant scale worm

Scale worms are usually small, and there are many different species that fall under the common name. At least one, Arctonoe vittata, famously enjoys a complex relationship with starfish. The worm lives in the starfish's sucker feet. There's a possibility that this commensal arrangement—neither animal really gets any special benefit from having the other around, but they aren't hurt by it either. On the other hand, a 1979 research paper found that A vittata and its starfish host will seek each other out—mutually—through mazes. The starfish will even choose to move toward the worm over its favorite food. And it's still not really clear why that is.

So these are interesting worms. In fact, they can look damn-near cute—almost like little roly-poly pill bugs. But those are the small ones. This guy is different.

The scale worm species Eulagisca is native to the Antarctic. Scientist and Deep Sea News blogger Miriam Goldstein found him in the Scripps Benthic Invertebrate Collection. Check out his size compared to the coffee cup, and tremble.

Not scared yet? Let's talk about the jaws of the scale worm. Here's something that many scale worm species share—mouths that make them look like extras from Aliens. Miriam has a photo of this specific specimen's jaws on Deep Sea News, but it doesn't quite capture the full horror. Below is a Smithsonian microscope image.

Read the rest of Miriam Goldstein's post at Deep Sea News

Read about the horrific jaws of scale worms and see more microscope images, courtesy the Real Monstrosities blog

Read about the relationship between scale worms and starfish at The Echinoblog

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

Maggie goes places and talks to people. Find out where she'll be speaking next.

MORE: animals • Delightful Creatures • horrors • oceans • Science

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http://www.paradea.org/notes/ Teirhan

Eugh. My nightmares about walrus eyes shall be expanded to include that mouth.
RKTR ♫soundcloud.com/rktr

I love how the mouth is in focus on the last picture, it makes it look so evil and menacing!
RedShirt77

Crap, I could never drink anything out of that coffee mug ever again after it was that close to the giant worms.
ldobe

And here I was, just getting over the nightmares the hedgehog penis caused me. I shudder to think of the fresh horrors BoingBoing will unmask next week :]
beemoh

No thank you.
cdh1971

Coming soon to your local sushi bar.
http://www.geekman.ca GeekMan

Unicorns, please.
- bzishi
  
  Seconded!
chenille

…none of that explained why this is scary. If it’s just that the worm has jaws, ok, but then the things that should really scare you are vertebrates. Those get way bigger and the jaws usually have rows of sharpened bones that grow out through the flesh.
- cminus
  
  Holy hell! I’m never going anywhere near any vertebrates!
  
  …I think this means I have to be a bank regulator now.
- bzishi
  
  It is scary because you can imagine smaller versions latching onto the back of the neck and taking over your mind (like the ending of the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation). The larger versions probably just burst from the stomach of their victims.
  - chenille
    
    Well, it’s not the first thing I think of when I see a worm. Sure, I could imagine these latching onto someone…but I can imagine the same with monkeys, and it certainly wouldn’t be less frightening.
  - malindrome
    
    “This IS Ceti Alpha V!!”
wooodster

“There’s a possibility that this commensal arrangement” what ? Aren’t there a few words missing there ? (I’m not a native english speaker, so this might be just me, but I keep trying to make sense of this sentence and I just can’t)
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001443259034 David Davion
  
  That awkward moment when you realize you just wrote an incomplete sentence.
Stephen Gordon

What, no weird worm penis? This isn’t the maggie I’ve come to expect!
http://twitter.com/5a4ah Sarah

yikes
Rich Keller

From the article:

“You know what’s most obscene of all? These worms are in the family Polynoidae, which is in the superfamily Aphroditoidea, itself in the suborder Aphroditiformia. That’s 2 mentions of Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation. I don’t know who decided to use that name, but that person was a strange person.”

LOL!
- chenille
  
  That person was Linnaeus, and yes, it seems he was being more than a little strange. This definitely isn’t the first thing I think of when I see a worm of any shape.
  - fredh
    
    Maybe Linnaeus was thinking of Aphrodite’s origins? She was born fully formed from sea foam. She’s the one standing on the oyster shell in that Bottecelli painting. So….ocean=Aphrodite? Maybe? I don’t know. I give up.
http://codeflow.org/ Florian Bösch

Nope
http://twitter.com/bsj1983 Blake St. John

Well have you ever considered how lonely starfish must be? It’s like letting a jerk roommate share your apartment because at least you don’t have to talk to the ficus.
professor

Why do I get the feeling that the scientist talks to it in her best Miss Piggie voice… “Wormeeeeeeee!”
snagglepuss

So it’s blind, brainless and bites.

I’ve dated worse.
chaopoiesis

A vittata and its starfish host will seek each other out—mutually—through mazes.

If people weren’t being so damned speciesist, they’d realize the very same thing would happen with Xeni and a kitten.

Wormday, please!
http://jere7my.livejournal.com jere7my

Wow! Is that…to scale?
Christopher Mah

Love it! thanks for the plug but Eulagisca is Antarctic. Not Arctic!
Christopher Mah

Here’s my original post about weird critters from the Antarctic http://www.echinoblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/10-of-weirdest-antarctic-invertebrates.html
Quiche de Resistance

This one just looks like a kindly old man.

“where are my glasses?”
http://twitter.com/iamnicolelee Nicole Lee

range is antarctic, not arctic. great post otherwise!